Play is the leading type of activity that is available for children during their preschool years and whereby they make cognitive, emotional, and physical progress. It helps pre-schoolers to improve their attention, memory, imagination and dexterity and makes them disciplined1. In addition, play is a natural way to assimilate social experience. As digital technologies are embedded into our daily lives, modern children grow up playing digital games more than previous generations and education is changing accordingly. The past decade has seen phenomenal growth in digital game-based learning. A learning environment that is interactive and visually stimulating becomes increasingly desirable2. A shift to digital game-based learning raises questions about game strategies and teaching methods3. Most of the statistical data on digital usage relate to children aged 11 and older, but the current trends suggest that the focus should be shifted to younger kids, whose lives have also changed with new technology. In a digitalized world, we should abandon the futile attempts to cut our kids from the digital space and focus more on giving them the right digital content and resources that will help them develop in positive ways4,5. One of the most important factors affecting a child’s mental and emotional development is virtual play6. Hence, preschool education programs should focus on creating a favourable learning environment using, among other things, digital means, including digital games that promote emotional development, socialization, and creativity in preschool-aged children. This paper investigates whether learning through digital play reduces or enhances the levels of aggression and anxiety in preschool-aged children. It also examines the impact of learning through digital play on the preschool-aged children’s level of social competence.
Literature review
The impact of digital games (mobile games, computer games, etc.) is a relevant topic that attracts the attention of many scientists. Research has shown mixed results in terms of how digital games affect player’s behaviour. Some studies reported negative implications, such as increased aggressiveness, health issues, and psychosocial struggles, and others found that video games were able to improve hand-eye coordination and self-esteem7,8. Digital games that require teamwork make learners communicate with each other to discuss and agree upon the following steps, thereby improving their social skills9. A well-designed digital game can provide powerful interactive experiences fostering young children’s learning, skill building, and healthy development10. In general, researchers agree that electronic games have a certain impact on the behaviour of preschool children11-13. Games, including digital ones, can provide a meaningful environment for problem-based learning, which is important given that a problem-solving skill is among the essential skills a person must possess. Since the purpose of the education is, among other things, to train learners how to handle new situations, play can serve as a means to create these new situations14,11.
Educational games, which are central to the ‘serious play’ movement, show promise for the integration of learning with an inherently motivational gaming environment. Learning through digital games enables children to actively participate in the learning process11. Digital game-based learning, shortly DGBL, is defined as an instructional method that incorporates educational content or learning principles into video games with the goal of engaging learners15,16,9. An unexpected or repeated encounter with new challenges (video games) requires additionally motivation to interact with educational material through play17. Kids between the ages of 3 and 8 prefer games that are animated, oriented toward problem-solving, and give them a sense of control18.
There are 12 structural elements of learning through play: a form of fun, rules, goals, interactivity, outcomes and feedback, adaptability, win state, challenges, problem-solving, interaction, and story6,12. Not all video games are effective learning environments though. To suit the educational purpose well, video games must match the age, abilities, and skills pre-schoolers need to learn19.
Social competence and behaviour
Socialization is a process by which people learn social life, master social relations, develop social roles, and acquire skills and abilities necessary to become part of a community20. This process is closely related to a person’s understanding of himself or herself and depends on how active they are in life. Socialization comes from multiple sources, including family, preschool institutions, educational organizations, and other institutions of socialization21,22. Across the developmental periods of preschool years, prosocial skills (friendly, cooperative, and helpful behaviours) and self-control skills (anger management, negotiation skills, and problem-solving skills) are key facets of social competence. In addition, however, developmental changes occur in the structure and quality of peer interactions that affect the complexity of skills contributing to social competence23. Children with higher levels of social-emotional competence are more likely to receive acceptance and sympathy among their peers and they tend to have a more positive attitude towards preschool20. In contrast, rejected children tend to be more aggressive or isolated and exhibit lower levels of prosocial behaviour24. Children displaying low social competence demonstrate peer rejection and lower school performance than children who are more socially competent25. Low social competence can also be a source of behavioural issues, such as internalizing (e.g., anxiety and withdrawal) and externalizing (e.g., acting out and conduct disorders) behaviours, as well as over-control (inhibited, and dependent) and under-control (impulsive, inattention, and aggressive) behaviours26,27.
The effect of digital games on kids is a topic that sparks much debate in the scientific community. The use of digital games and, more broadly, digital technology in early childhood education received substantial criticism. The interactive play was reported to distract children from socio-emotional and psychomotor learning activities28. In addition to that, there are issues that stem from inadequate physical and cognitive ergonomics, as well as situations where children put more efforts to master digital skills, rather than developmental skills29. Since playing too much video games can lead to a more sedentary lifestyle and distract from social connection, the use of digital games in the classroom is limited to make sure that children receive the necessary amount of physical activity30. Between ages 3 and 6, children demonstrate variability in how they develop their intellectual, social, emotional, and physical skills, and they also differ in their character and interests. Pre-schoolers have fewer real-life social experiences as compared to older children and adults and they are far less able to tell fantasy from reality, especially at age 331,32. Long-term studies show that using games in educational contexts leads to greater learning, stronger motivation, and more productivity33,34.
Research into DGBL tends to focus on the motivational effects of the methods, in part because learners playing the game may find it to be very engaging: sometimes, players are totally immersed in the game and can play it for hours with little or no awareness of the broader world around them35. The production of intrinsic motivation in players was postulated to depend on seven factors, which include both individual and interpersonal factors35,36. The individual factors are a challenge, curiosity, control, fantasy, competition, cooperation, and recognition. The interpersonal factors are associated with the use of incentive structures, such as stars, points, leader boards, badges and trophies that player might want to earn, as well as the game mechanics and actions that students enjoy or find interesting to try37. From the perspective of impact on social competence, it is desirable to use less extrinsic motivators and focus instead on making the game feel more interesting and fun to play38.
Research question
Today, Kazakhstan and Russia continue to reform the education system to eliminate problematic issues identified during the assessment activities. The impact of digital games on children is a topic that causes a lot of controversy in the scientific community in these countries.
So far, there is still a debate going on about which aspects of play lead to learning and what effect play has on the psychological development of children. Do educational video games affect children's interpersonal relationships and behaviour in a group? Without assessing the impact of play on child's self-esteem and social competence, it will continue to be regarded as a tool that is motivational and fun, but useless in terms of fostering social development in children. The rapid growth in the use of educational digital games has generated the need to determine if they can provide learners with suitable learning environments. The evaluation is done by assessing the impact of digital games on a child’s social, emotional, cognitive, and physical development. At the same time, the digital games research generally lacks a consistent research paradigm. Most articles on educational digital games focus on the motivational potential of games or their benefits to learning. Therefore, there is a need to assess the impact of digital educational games on the social competence and behaviour of children. Given the fact that everyday life of people is now digitalized, we must to understand what consequences digital technologies have for development and how they affect the levels of social competence, anxiety, and aggression in children. The present study aims to explore the impact of digital educational games on the behaviour and social competence of preschool-aged children in controlled and for fun (unsupervised play). The following research questions are raised:
Are there differences in levels of anxiety, aggression, and social competence between children who play digital games in a classroom for learning purposes and children who plays just for fun?
How will the behaviour of preschool children change after integrating digital games into their classroom routine?